Record collectors and Soundgarden fans alike will enjoy this: The recently-reunited Seattle grunge outfit and Sub Pop Records are re-releasing the band’s first single, “Hunted Down” along with original B-side “Nothing to Say” on orange vinyl on April 17, Record Store Day.

If you remember your Soundgarden history, “Nothing to Say” was the song that made the A&R suits turn their heads: “Labels started calling us when they heard the song,” recalls guitarist Kim Thayil. “I was working at Seattle Filmworks along with Mark Arm from Mudhoney, Bruce Fairweather from Mother Love Bone, and Owen Wright from My Sister’s Machine. I got this phone call while I was doing some splicing and it was Chris. He said, ‘You’re not going to believe this — A&M called!.’ The rest is history.”

We’ve all heard by now that Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor is busy retiring NIN’s live incarnation with a “Wave Goodbye” tour and, according to rumors, starting a family with the former frontwoman to West Indian Girl, fiancée Mariqueen Maandig. Also, he loves to hate on Chris Cornell’s Scream album via April Fool’s Day, interviews, and Twitter. Well, Trent still has time to drop a few rants on the Internet, though his management has now forbidden questions on “the state of the industry.”

“I really have no personal issue with Chris [Cornell] at all,” Reznor told Eye Weekly’s Liisa Ladouceur. “We were on [Interscope]. And I have had Jimmy Iovine, the president of that label, come up to me on every record from With Teeth onwards saying I should do some sort of urban thing — it was Timbaland for a while, then it was Pharrell for a while — because ‘that’s how you sell records.’ The idea seemed so preposterous and insulting.”

Reznor goes on to insist that his gripes with Cornell’s album have nothing to do with working with hip-hop producers, as he says making a record with Dr. Dre “would be kind of cool,” but the impetus behind Cornell’s foray into dance/rock was, according to Trent, to pander for radio play.

Though his manager was probably biting his nails in the wings, pondering cutting off the lights, Reznor offered one unprompted comment on the previously off-limits music industry topic: “If I have one major fight in the world of the music business, it’s trying to keep art first and commerce second.”

Fair enough, Trent. You’re doing just fine at both thus far. Now just steer clear of Virgin America and it’ll be okay.

It doesn’t look like Trent Reznor will be flying home for the holidays on Virgin America this year, as he or any other passenger of Richard Branson’s airline will be surrounded by music and videos from Chris Cornell’s divisive Timbaland-produced album Scream.

In a press release (via Riverfront Times), Virgin America said they “are thrilled to partner with a music legend like Chris Cornell,” adding:

Starting in October and running through the holidays, the entire Virgin America fleet will feature Chris Cornell music on all flights. His latest LP, Scream, has been added to the airline’s music library and select songs will be a part of a collection of music that plays as passengers are boarding. Beginning in November, passengers will also have the opportunity to experience various Chris Cornell music videos and albums throughout their flight.

I’m not going to join the throngs of Scream-bashers here, but I should add that I’d feel a little safer flying to the tunes from Strobe Light. Also, doesn’t this recent development confirm Reznor’s “money grab” claims?

Up until now, the only elaboration Trent Reznor had given us on his dis against Chris Cornell’s Timbaland-produced album Scream was in the form of the hilarious April Fool’s Day joke album Strobe Light. In the faux press release, Reznor parodied Cornell’s attempt to incorporate popular dance music and electronic beats with his 90s grunge roots, while also calling out Cornell for selling out by listing radio-friendly performers, like Fergie, Alicia Keys, and Justin Timberlake, as collaborators on the mock album. In a lengthy podcast interview on Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot’s Sound Opinions, Reznor has given us a much more specific, and revealing, explanation for his indignation against Cornell:

In the case of Cornell, I don’t know Chris. I do know what label he’s on now and I do know who’s whispering in his ear. And heavily on the With Teeth album, I turned that record in and I would get back “Hey you know, you might wanna… maybe we need to put some beats on this record.”

I’m not making this up. “What do you mean ‘beats’?”

“Well this urban thing is really taking off. You’ll get it in the club. You know, what if we had Dre or somebody…”

And the part of me that wants to be the open-minded artist says, “I’ll consider that.” I even went so far as Timbaland doing a, trying to do a, remix at Interscope’s dime of “Hand That Feeds” which was laughably terrible. And when I turned in Year Zero, which I thought had the coolest beats I’ve ever come up with and I hear “Yeah, we need some cool beats,” it’s like, “you know what, suck me.”

And I’m sure there was someone whispering in Cornell’s [ear] and he can put that off as some kind of socio-cultural experiment, but what it was was a money grab and when you do that you’re saying to other people that look up to you, it’s okay to do that and it’s not okay to do that. It isn’t.

Not quite as harsh as his slam against Prince and Rivers Cuomo, but damn, this guy’s an open book these days.

For good or ill, all the music from the 90s is coming back. Sure, the return of Limp Bizkit, Sugar Ray, and that guy from Smash Mouth making a country record isn’t really good news, but at least we’ve got Sunny Day Real Estate and Blur reunions to wash that down. Now we can add an inevitable Soundgarden reunion to the list.

When the band, sans Chris Cornell, reformed for a set of old Soundgarden favorites with Tad Doyle and Tom Morello in late March, the reunion talk was sparked. Then Chris Cornell started using some cryptic language in interviews to suggest that he was open to the idea of getting the band back together, but he was careful not to turn the spotlight off the promotion of his current solo project.

Now in an interview by Kerrang! (via Blabbermouth) with Shinedown’s Brent Smith, the frontman let a new development slip: “There’s talk of a reuniting of Soundgarden in the States soon,” he said. “I know actually someone specific who told me that, who is actually specifically in their organisation. Kinda told me that they’re talking about it.”

In defense of Chris Cornell, the singer/songwriter has used negative reviews of his new album Scream and Trent Reznor’s diss as a way to make some mature, insightful comments about the music industry that you rarely get from artists embittered by a critical backlash.

In a great interview with the Washington Post, Cornell responded to Reznor’s below the belt tweet, saying, “That’s kind of childish. To be honest, if I wanted to go out to blast records that I hate, I would be sitting on Twitter 24 hours a day blasting 96 percent of what comes out — maybe 98 percent of what comes out. (Laughs.) There’s a lot of music that I don’t like.” It’s possible the talk happened before Reznor’s April Fools’ Day follow-up, but we think this was a pretty graceful comeback.

On the critical consensus that his collaboration with Timbaland was incongruous, Cornell told NY Post that he knew his new sound would be tough to swallow, “but experimentation leads to unpredictability. Most artists stay in their comfort zone — not me.” I suppose we’re a bit jaded by most musicians’ bitterness toward criticism, but this is very refreshing, not to mention the live version of “Part of Me” holds up much better than the studio take.

For more from Cornell, including talk about the recent 75% Soundgarden reunion, click here.

And you thought the Blur/Oasis feud was fun. When Trent Reznor dissed Chris Cornell’s new album on his Twitter, it didn’t really matter much; just a good ol’ Twitter jab. Reznor’s April Fools joke, however, has taken the feud to a whole new (and hilarious) level.

“To download NIN’s new full-length album Strobe Light, PRODUCED BY TIMBALAND, enter a valid email address in the fields below,” Reznor’s new site says. “A download link will be sent to you immediately. Your credit card will be charged $18.98 plus a $10 digital delivery convenience fee. Your files will arrive as windows media files playable on quite a few players with your name embedded all over them just in case you lose them. You will also receive an exclusive photo and a free email account with our partner Google’s Gmail service.”

The funniest part has to be the tracklist though:

01 Intro Skit
02 Everybody’s Doing It [Feat. Chris Martin, Jay-Z AND Bono]
03 Black T-Shirt
04 Pussygrinder [Feat. Sheryl Crow]
05 Coffin on the Dancefloor
06 This Rhythm Is Infected
07 Slide to the Dark Side
08 Even Closer [feat. Justin Timberlake and Maynard James Keenan]
09 On the List (She’s Not)
10 Clap Trap Crack Slap
11 Laid, Paid and Played [feat. Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas and Al Jourgensen]
12 Feel Like Being Dead Again
13 Still Hurts [feat. Alicia Keys]
14 Outro Skit

To check out the big version of Strobe Light’s cover art (complete with Kanye shutter shades), click here.